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Wikipedia Turns 15

15.wikipedia.org

41–50 of 115 posts

Re: Wikipedia Turns 15

#41
The page is 2.5mb and took 18 seconds to fully load. Is that why they've been badgering us for donations for donations recently?

(I am being facetious; I bloody love Wikipedia and do donate, but you think they'd be more careful about this sort of thing)

Re: Wikipedia Turns 15

#42
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wikipedia confirms that "embiggens" is a made up word from the Simpsons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisa_the_Iconoclast#Embiggen_a...

I'm not sure if you are passing judgement but this is how language evolves.

I'm perfectly cromulent with that as well.

Re: Wikipedia Turns 15

#43
post #24

I pay monthly to wikipedia, I use it tens of times a day, it is a fantastic unparalleled resource - a real public good. Wikipedia is a proof of a utopian vision that infused the early web - ensuring public rights wins public contribution. Humanities collective knowledge is better distributed because of Wikipedia, a true wonder of the modern world. IMHO, we must treasure wikipedia as it is not clear it could happen ag…

I think wikipedia (along with Google) really allowed for the current transition to over-abundance of easily accessibly information -- at least in developed countries. For better or worse, I think we've started moving towards only considering application of knowledge to be a worthwhile topic of study, instead of just gaining it. If this is true, it'd be pretty catastrophic for services like wikipedia to suddenly disappear.

Re: Wikipedia Turns 15

#44
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like wikipedia killed the web in a way. Anytime you search for something 95% of the time wikipedia is the first result and thus 99% of the time it is I go to it for information. What websites or innovations have we missed out on because of this?

Maybe the encyclopedias would have developed micropayments? Or maybe they would have just gone for a traditional expensive paywall approach and information would have been denied to the masses?

Well there is no way that information wouldn't have gotten out. For the sake of argument I'm merely pointing out that having one website dominate as a source of information may have hurt the web in general.

Re: Wikipedia Turns 15

#45
Wikipedians are hosting free events across the world for "Wikipedia Day" this weekend.

* San Francisco (Saturday): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/San_Francisco...

* New York City (Saturday): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/NYC/Wikipedia...

* Boston (Saturday): https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_15/Events/Boston

* Bangalore (Sunday): https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_15/Events/Bangalor...

* London (Sunday): https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meetup/London/101

* Portland, Seattle, Vancouver (Saturday, meet Ward Cunnigham!): https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_15/Events/West_Coa...

New York will feature a talk about Wikidata, how to query it with SPARQL, and how we are integrating it with Wikipedia and pushing forward the Semantic Web. Other NYC talks include things like "Git-flow approach to collaborative editing", "Copyright and plot summaries", and "Automated prevention of spam, vandalism and abuse". We will be linking up with San Francisco and likely some other cities for a global teleconference at 4:00 - 5:00 PM ET (21:00 UTC).

If you're interested, sign up and stop by!

Re: Wikipedia Turns 15

#46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure if you are passing judgement but this is how language evolves.

I'm perfectly cromulent with that as well.

This feels ungrammatical to me. I think "I find it perfectly cromulent." feels more correct.

(I only comment because I'm amused to find I've heard "cromulent" used as a "real word" enough that my brain has intuited rules for its usage.)

Re: Wikipedia Turns 15

#47
post #31
post #24

I pay monthly to wikipedia, I use it tens of times a day, it is a fantastic unparalleled resource - a real public good. Wikipedia is a proof of a utopian vision that infused the early web - ensuring public rights wins public contribution. Humanities collective knowledge is better distributed because of Wikipedia, a true wonder of the modern world. IMHO, we must treasure wikipedia as it is not clear it could happen ag…

Wikipedia confirms that "embiggens" is a made up word from the Simpsons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisa_the_Iconoclast#Embiggen_a...

To be fair, all words are made up. Their usage is what makes them relevant.

Re: Wikipedia Turns 15

#48
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm perfectly cromulent with that as well.

This feels ungrammatical to me. I think "I find it perfectly cromulent." feels more correct. (I only comment because I'm amused to find I've heard "cromulent" used as a "real word" enough that my brain has intuited rules for its usage.)

[deleted]

Re: Wikipedia Turns 15

#49
post #2

I was thinking just yesterday whether wikipedia will ever change its design or if it is timeless (unless devices change radically). I don't remember any major changes, I guess there were gradual that I didn't notice?

Have you used wikiwand? Much improved UX. Can't go back since I started using it.

My friend swears by Wikiwand, but I hate how it changes all links to its own domain. (It really should have been a browser extension instead of its own website that's merely a stylesheet) It also overoptimizes for the reader: minimizing the edit tab, hiding the talk page, hiding the history tab, over-enlarging images, and making disambiguation hatnotes nearly invisible. I do like how it has article preview popups on hover, though Wikipedia has had that feature in beta for a while. This blog post sums up the objection to redesigns well: http://jgthms.com/wikipedia-redesign.html

Re: Wikipedia Turns 15

#50

Congratulations, Wikipedia! I found it tremendously useful over the years. I have one suggestion for them. I wouldn't mind making micro-donations for articles of particular quality and relevance to me. Say I find something useful and click on a '2c' donation button. The system doesn't trigger an immediate payment transaction because I would not have time to do it but instead waits until I accumulate $1+ in 'spend' an…

I think its a pretty good idea, worth trying for sure. My concern is that what is currently a "free" resource will have a price tag placed on it. Also, people who are paying might start to act entitled to very high quality.
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